The Wars of Alexander's Successors 323-281 B.C. 

Volume II: Battles & Tactics

by

Bob Bennett & Mike Roberts

 Alexander's last words were recorded in several different versions. One of them was that he wished he could see his 'funeral games'; another version says he left his empire "to the strongest". If he did actually say either, it was pretty astute of him. The 'funeral games' and the fight for primacy took up the next four decades. The wars after Alexander's death occupied the Hellenistic World until the end of the Hellenistic Age. The main antagonist of these wars was Antigonus Monophthalmus (the one-eyed). According to Plutarch he was the "oldest and greatest" of the Diadochi (Successors). The wars and battles continued for so many years because a few of the Diadochi were trying to be the last one standing, and conquering the entire kingdom that Alexander had held at his death.

  This book is Volume II in the series. The first volume dealt with Wars of the Diadochi. This volume deals with their battles and the tactics used in them. The greatest battle of the age and one of the largest battles in Ancient History is described here. That would be the Battle of Ipsus. It was fought in 301 B.C. On one side you had Antigonus, Demetrius, and Pyrrhus. The other side was populated by troops from all of the other Diadochi. Seleuces was there along with his 400 elephants! Lysimachus was also present on the field. Ipsus ended the Antigonid dream of reuniting the empire. Antigonus was killed and Demetrius was forced to flee. 

 Just as in Volume I, the information in this book is priceless for both the history lover and wargamer. To see how exactly the great generals of the time used their elephants, phalanxes, and cavalry in battle is eye opening, and sometimes different then what we think their use was. Many of us also believe that when an ancient battle was being lost there was not much a general at the time could do about it. The fact that Antigonus twice pulled his irons from the fire and came up with victories puts paid on that score. 

 Thank you Casemate Publishers, for letting me review this great second volume. No one with an interest of the military history of the period should be without the set.

Robert

Book: The Wars of Alexander's Successors 323-281 B.C. : Volume II Battles & Tactics
Authors: Bob Bennett & Mike Roberts
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Distributor: Casemate Publishers

It's exactly what it says on the tin, here's a video of me running through the demo for Tactical Troops: Anthracite Shift. If you scurry over to Steam right away you can grab the demo yourself (it goes away June 22nd), but if you missed it or just want to kick back and watch a video, here are the four missions featured in the demo.

- Joe Beard

LIBERTAD O MUERTE

from

AVALON-DIGITAL

When I first received this beta version of what was originally entitled Libertadores from Avalon-Digital and has finally be named Libertad o Muerte, it didn't even have a rule book available online. However, from my experience with their digital game Battles for Spain, I was able to start to explore the game as most of the mechanics are identical.  Obviously, we're in a different time and a different part of the world altogether with a very different feel to it.

My knowledge prior to this game was purely the name Simon Bolivar whose nickname, El Libertador, lent itself to the game's initially projected title and whose surname is the title of the first Scenario.

The historical background is the Wars of Independence in the Spanish colonies of South America from 1810-1825.  The two players represent the conflicting factions: the Patriots against the Royalists.

Once more, we are in the digital manifestation of the sort of tabletop board wargame that stacks out my game shelves. It's an IGO-UGO system with the Patriot player going first and the Royalist Player second.  You can play either side against the computer A.I., but there's also the option to use playbymail to take on another human opponent.

A familiar framework of Phases takes you the through the rules and as with Battles In Spain, there is now a full 52 page online rule book that you can access.  

The Phases speak for themselves.:

Draw Cards

Reinforcements

Income

Maintenance

Purchase

Naval Movement

Naval Combat

Land Movement

Land Combat

Siege

Place Purchased Units

Replacements

As with so many digital games, the actions are often far swifter to execute than manipulating physical counters and negotiating a paper rulebook.  

Draw Cards and Reinforcement Phases

As with all good card assisted games, this is the opportunity to pick up some of the essential history belonging to this campaign.  Any Event cards will be outlined in purple and have to be played immediately.   I'd also strongly advise reading the inroduction to each Scenario carefully, where you'll find information crucial to winning the game, particularly key regions to eithe hold or capture.

A typical Event that gives the Patriots some VPs 

and increases the Tension Index

Some cards will provide reinforcements that will appear in a later Phase.  These tend to a Leader and some accompanying units and the potential areas that they can be placed in will be highlighted by those areas turning green.  Along with the familiar three arms, you may at times receive ships and privateers.  I always like games that do more than jus provide basic fodder, but create the ambience of the period through touches of chrome like this.

Income and Maintenance

These are the type of Phases which I hate when they appear in a board wargame: the totting up of how much money you're bringing in and how much maintaining your troops cost.  In a computer game, I'm happy because the computer does it for me.  The only input you may need to have is if you don't have enough to pay all your troops and then you will be presented with a list to click on those you choose to retain and pay for.

Purchase [every other turn]

Having had the hard work done for you, you are now free to buy units with any military resources or use some for replacement points.  Once again where you can place what you buy will be shown by the areas being lit up.  This is a very useful help, as some types of units can only be placed in certain types of terrain.  No making accidental mistakes. A final good point is that a black silhouette of the type of unit is left in the area.  The unit will be placed there in a later Phase*.  

Primarily we're in the era of infantry, cavalry and artillery with combat and movement strengths as well as morale.  Replacing the steps that you would have in a physical copy, each counter shows its steps by a number of green dots -  a nice point is that some units that arrive as reinforcements aren't always at full strength! 

Movement 

A simple process of clicking on a stack and dragging it to its destination takes care of movement.  An aspect I like is that not only does the program, as you'd expect, not let you exceed movement allowances, it also provides a written message if there are other reasons why the move cannot be made.  Wish I could be programmed to avoid those mistakes when I'm playing with physical components!

Combat

This is one area that I want to control for myself, but in this game you can't.  For once, the computer taking control for me is not a good idea.  It does make battles fast, but I like games where I can choose how I line up my units, see the dice rolls and know why I've hit or missed.  In games where you've masses of counters that can become a chore, but this is not that type of game. By and large these are fairly low unit encounters.  I have several computer games that employ an almost identical mechanism and visual display for battles as Libertadores does, but give you that degree of control where I think it matters. 

Sieges

These are fairly rare and occur when you have units in an area and the only enemy, often just a garrison, are in a city.  They are handled by a simple die roll system.

*Place Purchased Units

As it says, this is when you actually get those units you bought earlier.  

Replacements

Similarly this is when you can use the replacement points you purchased earlier.

All in all this is a very satisfying system with an interface that is largely intuitive and a clear rule book to clarify any uncertainties you might have about carrying out any functions.  At 52 pages it seems like you've got a fairly deep game on your hands, but text size and plentiful illustrations in fact make this a rule book I'd be very happy to have if this was a conventional board wargame sitting on my dining room table.  After a session or two, I doubt that you'll have any need to refer to it, especially if you take the time to go through the Learning Tutorials.   

Turns go by quickly and smoothly with the ability to set your A.I. opponent at three levels of difficulty: Basic, Voluntary and Expert.  The centre one is the default setting with the choice to make it easier or more difficult.   The Scenarios are diverse and range from ones that cover a small portion of the map to much vaster campaigns.  For this, navigation around the map couldn't be easier with the mouse wheel making zooming in and out at your fingertips, as seen below.  One minor draw back is that when the A.I. is playing the map zooms out.  You can manage to manually reframe this, but as it moves from Phase to Phase it automatically zooms out again.  I believe that small irritant is something the company are hoping to improve.

The Big Picture

A Closer Look

I've greatly enjoyed this game and would particularly recommend it to those, like me, who enjoy what is essentially a traditional board wargame in digital format with many of the advantages of the latter form.  In fact, I hope that the rumours I've heard of its intended production as a traditional board wargame come to fruition.  It's certainly one I'd like to have in front of me handling the excellent cards, moving the pieces physically and conducting the battles myself - I'd even put up with having to work out my own income, payment and resources!

As always many thanks to AvalonDigital for providing a review copy

The game can be purchased direct from AvalonDigital for 19.99 euros.

Naval Battles Simulator, in development by Anarchy'97, has recently appeared on Steam Early Access. Although it's not going to be a game for everyone, NBS is an ambitious project from a small team that I wanted to give you a look at. So what Naval Battles is the game simulating exactly? That would be the battles between the Axis and Allies in WW2. The game features scenarios depicting notable battles, and a campaign mode, which is the meat of the game. As the Allies, you'll need to protect shipping as it moves from the US to the UK and other locales. If you choose to play as the Axis, you'll be trying to intercept those same convoys.  

Although I have only dabbled in the campaign mode, I've seen that it has a lot to dig into for any wargamer interested in the setting. As the Allied player, you'll be setting up convoys, escorts, and patrols to keep supplies flowing for the war effort. Just as in the real war, the key step towards destroying the Axis raiders is finding them in the first place. How you go about this is a big part of the strategy. Do you dedicate ships to directly escorting convoys, spread them out to cover more ground, or try to pen in the Axis at their ports? Likewise, as the Axis you'll need to dodge enemy patrols and hunt down those convoys. You only have so many ships available, and the oceans are vast. To aid you in this effort, you will receive some intelligence from various sources that will give you an incomplete, but useful, picture of what sorts of enemy task forces are out there, and where they were last seen.

If you don't want to handle the big picture, you can leave it up to the AI and only engage in the tactical battles. The reverse is also possible, directing the strategic efforts and leaving the battles to the computer. If you do choose to control the battles directly, the game switches to a zoomed in tactical view. While the visuals are pretty simplistic, they do convey what is going on well enough. Various icons on a blue field show the location and direction of the ships, with shells flying and back and forth once combat begins. If you want, you can get pretty nitty-gritty here, selecting targets for individual turrets on each ship and manually ordering them to fire. Most likely you'll want to keep it simple, but it's nice that the option is there. NBS models many details relevant to naval warfare at this time. A display shows the flooding status of different compartments in the ship, pumps can be manually directed to correct listing of the ship or save critical systems. If the magazine takes a direct hit, the ship might be gone in an instant. Every major part of the ship you would expect to command has a screen that can be opened or closed. Once you play around with things a bit, it becomes easy enough to direct your ships, and then you can enjoy watching the rain of shells flying back and forth.

However, controlling the ships is where you might run into some frustration, as the UI still leaves something to be desired. Having a half dozen small windows cluttering the screen isn't the most efficient system, but it is customizable at least. One thing that really got me (unless I'm completely missing something) is that I couldn't simply click on the icon of a ship to select it, I had to the use the "next ship" button/hotkey to cycle through them all until I got the one I wanted. Additionally, there's not much documentation for what is a fairly complex game. There are only a couple of short written tutorials going over the absolute basics. This sort of thing can always be fixed with time of course.

I plan to keep an eye on this game as it continues development and will do a more in depth review when it reaches an official release in the future. At only $15, it certainly won't cost you much to give it a try yourself.

Naval Battles Simulator is available now on Steam.

- Joe Beard